PC | Page 2 | Martin Crownover

Looking back on 2016, there are a lot of things that I'd rather just not remember at all - but games are not one of those things. As a matter of fact, I've played a lot of really great games in (and from) 2016, and so I thought I'd do what everyone else is doing this time of year, and compile a list of my favorites to share.

One thing that caught my eye as I look over this page is that 2016's games seem a lot more colorful than in years' past. I guess a lot of developers took all those complaints of drab, brownish-gray post-apocalyptic worlds to heart!

Anyway, here they are, in alphabetical order:

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

The sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, this new game made a lot of smart improvements, with the addition of a more open world to explore in between missions, a revamped skill tree, what felt like the inclusion of many more paths-to-completion, and more. Augmentations feel powerful and useful, and as you play, you can build Adam Jensen (the game's protagonist) into whatever sort of superman you like.

Being a completionist and wanting to see the best ending to the story, I played the game without killing anyone and doing as many side-missions as I could find. Subsequently, Mankind Divided took me some time to complete (between 30-40 hours, I'd say), and I still didn't find everything. I had a great time exploring Prague and submerging myself in the game's fiction throughout.

Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 is another of those games in which I truly love the world the developers have crafted. So much of the world seems alive and real because of the fantastic architecture and the extra details sprinkled throughout levels, and zipping around as a magical assassin is intuitive and fun. The quick-save feature is also greatly appreciated, and if you try to get through this game without killing any enemies, as I did, you will make great use of it.

If you've not played the original Dishonored, I'd highly recommend playing that game first, though it's not required to understand or enjoy what's happening in Dishonored 2 - but it's such a good game, I'd hate for anyone to miss it. A remastered version was released to celebrate the arrival of the sequel, so there's no excuse not to play both.

Final Fantasy XV

I haven't actually finished Final Fantasy XV yet, but I've been really enjoying it - it feels like the first "real" RPG I've played in a long time, and that's not meant to disparage games like Dragon Age: Inquisition or Fallout 4. It's just that while those games take the RPG recipe and extrapolate something new from it, games like Final Fantasy XV feel more like a pure, old-school RPG experience, while still adding layers of new and fun stuff.

This is actually the first Final Fantasy game I've really dug into outside of a brief stint with Final Fantasy III on Nintendo DS, so I'm kind of a noob to the series. XV has inspired me to consider picking up the other games set in the same mythos, time permitting.

The Flame in the Flood

The Flame in the Flood is a smaller, "rogue-lite" game where you play as an unnamed girl traveling down the waters of a flooded, post-societal America with her dog, Aesop. I've never actually beaten it, but traveling down the river and exploring all the locations along the way, while managing hunger, cold, and other afflictions is quite fun once you get the hang of it. It reminds me of a more focused version of Don't Starve, and it's easy to get caught up and spend a few hours trying to survive the wilderness.

Forza Horizon 3

Easily the best racing game on Xbox One (and maybe even PC in recent years), Forza Horizon 3 is an excellent melding of racing sim and arcade racer. The visuals are colorful and clean, the soundtrack is bumping, and most importantly, the racing is fun and accessible. If you're hankering for a good racing game, look no further.

As a bonus, Forza Horizon 3 is also a PC/Xbox One Play Anywhere title, so you can buy it for either platform and get it for free on the other.

Gears of War 4

I loved the Gears of War series on Xbox 360, so I was very excited to get the next installment this year in Gears of War 4 on Xbox One and PC. This newest game has all of the thrills of the original series, with smoother gameplay and many modern improvements over the original games.

This game is another Play Anywhere title, and it also supports cross-play in certain modes, so you can play on your PC with players on Xbox, and the reverse.

Inside

Inside is a pseudo-sequel to Limbo, featuring the same sort of gameplay, but with a more defined narrative and improved visuals. The game is a very atmospheric and the world is a neat place to explore. It's not a long game, but solving the puzzles feels rewarding and the story, while bizarre, is interesting.

Overwatch

You probably already know this, but Overwatch is a competitive first person shooter from Blizzard, featuring a large cast of heroes to play, each with unique abilities and play style.

The biggest endorsement I can give this game is that it was the game that finally pulled me away from Team Fortress 2.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI

We've all heard the phrase "just one more turn", and the same applies to this newest installment of Civilization. Many aspects of the game have been streamlined, while others have been improved and expanded, such as the world leader AI and the religious aspects of the game. My favorite thing so far has been establishing my own religion, Martyism, and watch it spread across the world.

Tom Clancy's The Division

I started playing The Division on PC, and ended up moving over to the Xbox for more couch-oriented gameage. The story for this game is grim, but interesting, and the gameplay is solid and fun.

The Witness

The Witness is another game I played (and beat!) on PC, and then re-bought on Xbox One so I could experience it all over again from the comfort of my couch.

This game is one of the best puzzle games I've played in years. The puzzles look deceptively simple, but the rules you learn as you go show how these supposedly simple puzzles have a range of depth you would never expect at the start, all while remaining accessible (and solvable!) with just a little intuition and perseverance. The story is smart and the world is wonderful. Highly recommended.

And here's a few other games I enjoyed this year, but which weren't released in 2016:

The Banner Saga

The Banner Saga is basically Oregon Trail, but with some RPG elements, vikings, and giants. The artwork is amazing.

Dear Esther: Landmark Edition

The first time I played Dear Esther, I was a little less enthused about so-called "walking simulators" - but no longer. The story Dear Esther tells and the exposition by which it is told is just great. It's not a long game, and there's not a lot of interactivity, but it's still a story worth experiencing. The soundtrack is also phenomenal.

Forza Horizon 2

I loved playing through Forza Horizon 2 for the same reasons I enjoyed its sequel, which I wrote about above. It's just a fun game with excellent racing mechanics, smooth visuals, and an amazing soundtrack.

Submerged

I was a bit surprised about Submerged. At first glance it looked like a somewhat shallow clone of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, but I ended up really digging the story. The gameplay isn't anything particularly new or groundbreaking, but I appreciate the narrative the developers crafted, and in the end I was happy to support their creativity.

If you're looking for a unique adventure game that won't take too long to complete, but still comes with an interesting story and functional/decent gameplay, Submerged is your ticket.

Honorable mention:

Quantum Break

I hated not to include Quantum Break in my favorite games of 2016, but despite the fact that it's unique and fun, it didn't stand up to the same level of excellence as the other titles mentioned above.

It is a neat experience though, and it's another Play Anywhere title, so if you're looking for something off the beaten path, Quantum Break could be it.

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Back in 2010, a week or so before Halloween, Double Fine Productions released Costume Quest. Somewhere between then and a month or two ago, I bought it on XBLA, and I finally got around to actually playing it about a week ago. It's a cute, fun little game, and I enjoyed it.

It's basically a light RPG-type game, where you run around neighborhoods trick-or-treating houses, collecting candy, costumes, and battle stamps (which improve your abilities in combat). Encounters with monsters are the meat of the game and trigger a sequence where the cute cartoon children and silly monsters morph into giants who do battle over the town in a turn-based RPG style. It kind of reminds me of that episode of South Park where the kids morph into anime characters and battle each other.

The cartoon graphics are crisp and colorful, and the sound design is simple, but does all the appropriate things. Controls are easy. Overall, it's a shorter, but quality title - the quality of which I've come to expect from Double Fine.

If you haven't played Costume Quest yet, I'd recommend it. Maybe save it as a little Halloween treat for later this year.

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Like many people out there, I've been playing Diablo 3 over the last week or so. And while I did participate in the beta, I mostly did that just to see how the game would run on my machine; I didn't really dig into the game until now. Here are a few things I've been thinking lately as I've played:

The mouse clicking is intense, and while the case could be made that it's a pure control concept or that it's a nice throwback, sometimes it can feel a little stale. I just hope I don't end up accidentally breaking my mouse.
I'm really happy Blizzard decided to get rid of town portal scrolls. Using up inventory slots for something you almost always had to have was stupid.
The cinematic scenes are epic. I'm honestly kind of surprised Blizzard hasn't begun developing its own in-house game-to-movie crossovers. They obviously have the talent.
The graphics are good, even at the lowest settings. It also runs on my years-old laptop, which is pretty neat. I'm afraid of overheating it though, so I don't play on that machine much.
It's hard to really nail down why, but the game feels (or rather, maybe it just looks) a bit like World of Warcraft. It just seems oddly familiar, which isn't really a bad thing I suppose.
The required internet connection is a little weird, especially at first. Playing a single player game with a latency indicator on the HUD is strange. I understand why they did all this, but for people with spotty internet connections / networking hardware, it's kind of a drag.
It's a bummer that Blizzard couldn't get the launch right. After spending a few days just looking at my shiny new pre-loaded game, I finally installed and then spent the first hour of launch trying to log in, but the game's servers were borked- no doubt totally crushed by thousands of people trying to log in at once. It's disappointing to me that Blizzard, proprietor or the world's most successful MMORPG, can't nail a launch that involves heavy server load yet.
Co-op play is seamless and easy to do, thanks to Battle.net.

Despite a few drawbacks, I'm enjoying my time with the game. This is definitely a more accessible Diablo, at least so far, and with achievements, weapon crafting, lots of rare items, and all sorts of stat combinations, there's no shortage of rewards for putting in time with the game.

It'll be interesting to see if that dynamic changes when Blizzard unleashes the cash-powered auction house in a few days; there's already one in operation that uses the in-game "gold" currency. Since the core of the game is still a single player experience though, the player remains well insulated from all the madness that comes with the auction house. And that's probably a good thing, lest Diablo 3 start feeling a little bit too much like World of Warcraft.

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So Valve finally got around to releasing one of the two final Meet the Team videos - the newest being for the Medic, and arguably the most epic video they've created so far. Watch below!

Oh, and if you didn't bother to watch all the way through, they've also just announced that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play for all! A generous move, surely, though I'm not sure if there are many people left out there who are interested in the game and haven't gotten it yet. Still, this is great news for the continuing popularity of the game.

And if it's proof of anything, it's proof that sales of virtual goods must be a profitable business for Valve. This wouldn't shock me at all.

Anyway, it's a great game by a great team. Get it for yourself if you haven't already!

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Another thing that happened while I was gone was that Team Fortress 2 got video capturing, editing, and rendering tools, and me and my buddy Dave used them to become YouTube sensations!

Well, the first part happened, anyway. The second part almost happened, but alas, not many people watched our video. I've taken the liberty of including it at the head of this post, if you're interested in watching a Pyro and Medic take on a handful of bad guys. Spoiler alert: lots of people get burned.

I used a combination of Team Fortress 2's built-in tools, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere to create the video. Oh, and a little help from a tool called GCFScape.

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At long last, Valve has finally delivered the promised Team Fortress 2 Engineer class update!

After slogging through months of other less interesting updates like the Steam port to Mac and Valve's horribly disappointing E3 "surprise" (Portal 2 on PlayStation 3... yawn), the addition of Engineer achievements and unique class weapons is a breath of fresh air. It's the patch that fans have been clamoring for since the inception of class updates for TF2, and it looks like Valve's lost no steam (pun intended!) in providing unique, fun, and rewarding additions to the game.

In total, the new update offers Engineers a new gun, two new melee weapons, a new sentry gun, a remote for sentry guns, and the ability to move placed sentry guns. Additionally included are four maps and the requisite slew of Engineer-oriented achievements.

I'm most excited about the ability to move around already-placed turrets, as well as the sentry remote control. After building a sentry gun and upgrading it to the highest level, it stinks to have to destroy it just to place another in a more active part of the map as the action moves around. Now, you don't have to do this - you just have to be careful when you pick it up and move it, since dying while carrying the packed-up sentry will cause it to be destroyed instantly.

Controlling turrets remotely is also a great addition. Though it takes the slot of your pistol to use the remote control (dubbed the Wrangler), it can be invaluable in helping to keep your construction alive while you run off to do other things. The sentry goes offline for a few seconds when you switch back to controlling your Engineer, but this is only a minor annoyance.

You can read about the rest of the items and maps in more detail at the official Team Fortress 2 Wiki.

I played around with the new patch last night, on the new map, Thunder Mountain, but I actually haven't played as an Engineer yet. Why, you ask? A few reasons.

First, everybody is playing as an Engineer right now. It's one of my favorite classes in the game, maybe even my favorite, but I can't play on a team that is 90% Engineers. The addition of being able to move your turrets around helps make the class play a little better on the offensive, but it's still boring to sit around waiting for sentry kills when everyone else is doing the exact same thing. It also makes each round incredibly hard to win.

Second, since everyone else is playing as an Engineer, it's a great time to be other classes - particularly Spy or Soldier. I racked up quite a few new achievements last night playing as both classes, because right now there are about four times as many destroyable objects being placed in the field than normal. I actually noticed another small downside to the remote-control sentry ability here as well; as a spy, it's a lot easier to back-stab people near remotely controlled turrets because, unless the player who is controlling it is looking at you when you do it, you won't be instantly detected and can escape again much easier than before.

It was also fun to play on the new maps. Almost nobody I was playing with knew them well, so we weren't mired down in the same old tactics you see whenever you play on maps which people have ran through a hundred times.

Overall, the class updates for Team Fortress 2 have added a lot to the game, and I applaud Valve for keeping at it. I hope they continue to find interesting ways to give the game depth and add to the fun. I know one thing for sure: I'm going to have a hard time not playing in most all of my spare time in the coming weeks.

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After being barraged by a flurry of game announcements on Steam the other day, I decided I'd try out the demo for one of the more interesting looking titles, Torchlight.

I was pleasantly surprised with the game, however - what initially looked to be merely a poor man's Diablo 3 turned out to be a fun and addictive, if somewhat simpler, dungeon crawler. After playing the demo for an hour or two, I purchased the full version, and have since descended into the mines many levels below the village of Torchlight, in search of fame, experience, and of course, fantastic piles of loot. Read on for my quick review!

Anyone familiar with Blizzard's dungeon-based role-playing franchises (Diablo, World of Warcraft) will be right at home with Torchlight. Just as in Diablo, you click to move your character around, click (ad infinitum) to attack, you can add items to numbered slots and trigger them with the numbers on your keyboard, and as you play you earn experience points that allow you to increase the base skills of your character, as well as select talents from a tiered tree of abilities. Quest-givers are indicated with floating exclamation points and question marks, items come in different levels of rarity and some can be slotted. And scrolls can be used to identify new items before you can use them, as well as create town portals for you to bounce back and forth between the village of Torchlight and the dungeons below.

At times, things can seem almost too familiar. But if you enjoyed the Diablo games and are aching for Diablo 3, that's not always a bad thing. Runic Games borrows elements from Diablo and WoW liberally, and works under the mantra "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

So as you might expect, the game progresses pretty similarly to Diablo games; you begin the game in the town of Torchlight, you're informed of a growing menace originating from the mines below, and then you spend hours and hours going into the mine, click-fighting a bunch of bad guys, and occasionally returning to the surface to empty your bags and replenish your potions. Thankfully, Runic Games has made a few appropriate changes to this formula, which have improved the classic dungeon crawling experience immensely.

One of the biggest changes you'll notice appears right on the character creation screen: no matter which class you choose, each one comes with a pet (either a cat or a dog). This computer-controlled companion has two primary functions. First, he (or she, depending on your naming preference) will attack any enemies you encounter, helping you punch through waves of bad guys with ease. Your pet also has a separate inventory from your fighter, so you can use him to store your excess items, and even equip a few items for extra effects beyond those offered by your main characters' gear. That brings me to the second, and arguably more important function of your pet — using the extra pet inventory, you can send the little guy back up to the surface to sell your extra junk while you continue to fight through the dungeons. This prevents you from breaking up the action every few minutes to empty your bags, so you really only need to go back up to the town whenever you want to turn in a quest or buy new supplies. Along with other changes, like the ability to remove slotted gems, and upgrade gems and spells, your pet is a great example of how Runic Games has streamlined the classic dungeon crawler formula in order to make the game more accessible and more fun.

This allows you to concentrate on the finer points of dungeon running, like loot. Loot drops often, and lots of time is spent comparing new gear to old. Enchanted gear can affect a great number of attributes, and the game contains gear sets that offer bonus attributes when you equip multiple pieces of the same set. Gear names are also color-coated according to rarity (the same color coding as seen in World of Warcraft) and as mentioned above, newly found gear often needs to be identified before it can be used.

Gear is one of the few things I have to gripe about with Torchlight, however. While there is indeed a huge variety of gear, multiple gear sets, and a great number of possibilities granted by gem slots, I find it slightly annoying that I have to mouse over each one to know what it is. Games like Diablo or World of Warcraft use naming schemes to hint at the abilities gear can offer. Any piece of armor in World of Warcraft that has the suffix "of the Monkey," for example, will grant the player increased agility. Armor with the suffix "of the Whale" grants spirit. "Of the Bear" grants strength, and so on. Though the naming scheme in Torchlight shares some characteristics with this system, it's not quite as precise. The result is that sometimes, you'll find two pieces of gear that have similar (or in one case I've encountered, identical) names, and yet the stats for the item will be different. It isn't a deal-break by any means, but it's not good, either.

The only other gripe I have about gear is that there don't seem to be enough different models/textures for all the stuff you pick up. Supposedly, Torchlight only had 11 months of development time from start to finish, so I suppose this can be overlooked. It's a shame, but most games with the amount of different gear to be found as Torchlight suffer similar limitations, so I guess I can't complain too loudly.

The graphics in Torchlight seem a little cheap at first, but they get the job done, and once you get into the action and the camera pulls away from your character, you'll completely forget how simple they are. If you squint your eyes a little, it even looks a bit like all the Diablo 3 screens/videos we've seen so far, and that's definitely not a bad thing. It's not going to wow your friends like Crysis might, but the graphics are consistently good, and that's what's important. Player and enemy models are nice, and have a broad range of animations. Color is used well and spell effects are appropriately awesome. The cartoonish graphics are nice to look at, and the world is vibrant and detailed. Actually, sometimes it's so detailed that you might lose some of the dropped loot in the background of the dungeons, but luckily Runic Games included another all-too-familiar feature, which lets you toggle nameplates for all the items on the screen. I should also mention that the game runs great on my machine.

Sound and music are nothing to write home about, but get the job done as well. The music is dungeon-ish and serves its purpose; it fills in the gaps between sword slashes and enemy grunts. And speaking of sword slashes and grunts, those effects are decent as well. There is even a little bit of voice acting sprinkled here and there, between levels where the story progresses, as well as when you talk to merchants in the town.

This is yet another area of Torchlight that crosses dangerously over into Blizzard's realm. Some of the music, like the town theme and the library theme, actually sounds like they were lifted straight from Diablo. And the first time you leave the blacksmith behind, and he yells "watch yer back" in his Scottish accent, you'll wonder if Runic Games didn't cast the same guy who did all the dwarven male for World of Warcraft. All of this makes the game seem, again, familiar to anyone who has played these other games, but I still wish Runic had gone the extra mile and not been quite so blatant in lifting ideas from Blizzard.

I've not beaten Torchlight yet, but I've spent many hours with it so far, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's not entirely original, but everything it's borrowed from other games adds to the experience so well, it's really hard to complain about it too loudly. At only $20, with three-character classes to play, and a near infinite number of levels to play through, thanks to the random level generator and upcoming level editor, Torchlight it a great value. I'm not sure if the game will last me until Diablo 3's eventual release, but it should be good for at least partially filling the gap we've been in since Diablo 2. The Torchlight MMO that's in development might also be good for filling the void, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

For now, go try the Torchlight demo. If you like these types of games, or if you're a loot whore in training, you'll probably like it a lot.

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Though I would normally shun someone who would buy an operating system on launch day, a week ago I bought, downloaded, and installed the newest version of Microsoft's OS, Windows 7. It's nice to have a modern OS on my recently assembled machine, and though the transition from XP was a bit jarring in some respects, any unexpected problems have been minimal so far. Overall, I'm glad I made the switch.

Of course, I went into this only after reading a lot about the upcoming OS and playing around with the beta version for a while. Despite its many criticisms, Vista represented a big leap forward in terms of the underlying systems of Windows, and a lot of growing pains for the platform were felt upon its release. Most of the issues that plagued Vista in its early days have been resolved however, and this makes for a far more comfortable Windows 7 experience.

Here's a quick run-down of how the (mostly painless) upgrade process went for me, from my old rig turning into a massive paper weight to the re-birth of Windows on my new machine.

If you completed the homework assignment, you've already read about my old computer breaking down, and my quest for parts to rebuild a new one. Gold star for you. If not, you can read about it here - there's no use in going into that much detail about it again.

Once the new computer was built, I put a minimal number of games on it, but held off on installing a massive amount of other software. My reasoning for this was twofold - first, I would save myself a great deal of time backing up data for the Windows 7 install, which was only a month away, as well, I would be avoiding any licensing problems that would arise from too many installations of protected software. This happened anyway, but I'll get into that later.

After a month of having only two major games on my computer, World of Warcraft, Windows 7 launch day finally came. I failed to find a copy of Win 7 Professional in stores (Best Buy only had upgrade copies, and Office Max/Office Depot had nothing but Vista), so when I got home from work I jumped onto Microsoft's online store and bought a digital copy directly. Since Win 7 Pro comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, I was given the option to download either. I chose the 64-bit version and started the 2.3Gb download. It took about two and a half hours to finish.

I burned the ISO file to a DVD and dropped the stuff I wanted to save onto one of the other hard drives in the machine, and then I restarted the computer and began the install.

Having so recently done an XP install, I am happy to report that Windows 7's install process is much more streamlined, and possibly even faster (I didn't time it, but it seemed to take about 20-25 minutes). Win 7's disk partitioning and pre-install setup is now done in a much more modern environment, with mouse support and a slick GUI. It asks only a minimal number of questions, and lets you set up the details later on once the install is finished. I was impressed by the speed and simplicity of the whole thing, especially compared to the old XP installer. Ars Technica actually has a great 15-page review of Windows 7 up, including a good portion on the new installer.

Once 7 installed, the system restarted one last time, and before long I was staring at a shiny new OS, all ready for my antics and exploits. Not too much had to be tweaked for the system to be the way I like it, either. UAC is relaxed in Win 7, so the interruptions aren't as annoying. The OS also seemed to find drivers for just about everything in the system, save for the GPU. That was really the only piece of system software I've had to install so far.

The only trouble I've really had with Windows 7 so far rests on the software side of things. On the first install of my Adobe software, something happened (I think I left the system waiting for the next disc for too long at some point) and the installation failed. All the programs seemed to install fine, but their licensing software was broken, so I had to re-install them. Then I had to call up the Adobe licensing support line because I'd already used my allotted two installs and wasn't able to de-activate my old computer's software before it died.

Aside from that, and a couple of times where a program crashed or froze, I've had no problems. Some of these issues may stem from the fact that I am running mostly 32-bit applications/games on a 64-bit OS, so I've expected a few hiccups.

Overall, however, things have been great. I'm finally able to use more than 4gb of RAM (I've got 6gb of RAM in triple channel mode now), and most everything seems to run solid. The improvements to the taskbar have taken me a lot less time to adjust to than I thought they would, and I actually feel like the new features, like Aero Peek, have helped me be more productive with my machine.

I'll probably have more to report as my collection of games and software trickles onto the new computer, and I start using it for other multimedia purposes - but for now you can consider me impressed.

And of course, glad that I don't feel like a sap for being a day one adopter.

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I got my new computer parts earlier this week, and after an hour or two of assembly, it gracefully sprang to life. And on the first try, no less. I'm proud of myself, because it's been a while since I've built a computer entirely from scratch.

Here's how the final build turned out:

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz Quad-Core CPU
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Diamond Radeon HD 4890 1GB (PCE-E 2.0 16x) GPU
Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Green 500Gb SATA HDD
HP 24X Multiformat DVD Writer SATA
Cooler Master Silent Pro 600W Modular Power Supply
Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

The only parts I didn't buy were two existing HDD's that I threw in at the end, for good measure (another 500Gb and my old 74Gb Raptor, both SATA). I was planning on adding the sound card from my old computer, but it won't fit well without blocking off the fan from the GPU, so I'm just going to roll with the onboard sound for now. Lastly, I'm currently only using two of the RAM sticks, because I'm running 32-bit XP, and I'm waiting for Windows 7 to release for the move to 64-bit.

The build went quite well and was fairly easy this time around. The power supply fit the case nicely and was easy to install. This was my first modular power supply, so the lack of cords (at least, initially) was a welcome addition to my computer-building experience.

The most difficult part of the whole build was easing the board into the box, as it was a snug fit. Antec makes great cases though, and there was plenty of holes for mounting the board properly.

The only other real problem I had with this build was just making sure I was grounded at all times - my current apartment has carpeting everywhere except for the kitchen and the bathroom, and neither of those places is a good place to build a computer. So, my hands were in contact with the case at all times, and no electronics were harmed in the production of this computer.

Anyway, back to the build... Antec also makes great sliding mounts for hard drives, so installing the drives was easy. Those had to go behind a separate door behind the front panel, so while they took a little more trouble to get in and out of the case than I would normally like, I don't do a lot of drive swapping, so it doesn't bother me much. Getting the DVD drive to install flush with the front of the case took some fiddling but wasn't difficult either.

To my relief, the GPU fit the space very nicely. The new Radeon HD 4890 is actually a tiny bit smaller than my old GeForce 8800 GTS. The only other large difference I noticed between the make of the two cards is that the circuit board of the Radeon seemed a tiny bit thinner, and more susceptible to bending, than the old GeForce.

Installing the CPU is always a harrowing experience for me. I'm always afraid I'm going to bend the connectors by placing the CPU in the slot the wrong way. Or that I'm going to accidentally rub off the thermal paste on the bottom of the fan (almost happened this time). Or that I'm not going to press hard enough on the fan mounts, and the fan will fall off later. Or that I'm going to press too hard on the fan mounts and crack the motherboard. Or... alright, I'll stop. It went smoothly. That's probably all I should have said about that to begin with.

RAM was similarly easy. Just pop it in the correct slots and snap it into place.

Once I got done putting all the parts in the box, I plugged in all the necessary cords and pressed the power button - which to my delight, worked. I hadn't closed the case yet though- I've built enough computers to know not to bother doing that until I know everything is working. I installed Windows XP. Installed some games. No problems. So far, I haven't even been hit by the notorious lockups I've heard about so many people getting from running 32-bit Win XP with more than 3Gb RAM.

Overall, this was a pretty straightforward computer build. I didn't have to consult manuals too often, and all the parts fit together well. Nothing got broken, nothing got fried. And now I've got a new computer that eats games for breakfast. Yayuh!

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I haven't been able to update the blog as much as I'd like over the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things to write about. Instead of letting all of my random thoughts go to waste, I thought I'd present them here as a collection. If you're just looking for a few moments of entertainment, you like reading the musings of the slightly insane, or you're looking for something to spark your pent-up rage, the following list is probably for you!

Never Too Zune

Each time I plug my iPod (5th generation) into my computer and it freezes up, I secretly hope that it won't come back on, so I have an excuse to buy a Zune HD. From everything I've seen online, these things look pretty nice, and I'd like to try something different than iPod for a while. I have absolutely no interest in the iPod Touch or an iPhone; the 32gb Touch is $110 more than the 32gb Zune HD and being tethered to AT&T again just makes me feel sick.

But I digress; the Zune HD looks slick in its own right. Wireless streaming capabilities and built-in HD radio are great, and I also like the idea of being able to output HD video and, of course, web browsing. If Microsoft opens up the Zune to user-created applications, it will become an even great alternative to the iPod. They seem to be making an effort to get developers to consider their other mobile devices, so I don't think this is too far-fetched. So far, however, they've been pretty tight-lipped about it.

Marvel Comics Feeling a Little Disney

Though I am not a huge comic book buff, I still felt as though I could almost hear the collective groan of fans as Disney scooped up Marvel Comics for a cool $4 billion early this week. Though both companies are distinctly American, and I am sure DIsney will handle Marvel with care, I still feel like Disney is starting to (or maybe already has) hit that critical mass where a company gets so big, with a reach so broad, that it ends up losing focus on all fronts.

There are plenty of companies out there who handle the multiple prongs of modern media quite well, but Disney has already been in danger of losing its grip on things in the past, and with yet another large addition to their stable of interests, I can't help but wonder what the future will be like for both Disney and Marvel.

Will Disney change how Marvel presents its franchises?

Will we see Marvel characters integrated with Disney's other mainstays, in titles like the Kingdom Hearts games?

Will we see another feud in Disney's management as these things happen?

Who knows? It could be interesting to watch, but it'll be a shame if either brand is hurt because of this.

All-Out Fallout

When I got sick a couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days laying around my apartment, relaxing and recovering. My girlfriend had some things to do up at her mom's house, and didn't want to risk getting sick, so I was all by myself for much of that time. Instead of doing anything productive, I used the time to get re-acquainted with my Xbox; I decided that there was no better way of doing this than by collecting all the achievements in Fallout 3.

I did all that I could with my existing character (why did Bethesda choose to make one bobblehead impossible to go back and get?), and then made another so I could focus on slightly different talents to pick up a few odd achievements, like the one for 50 speech successes, and also so I could hit the appropriate levels with neutral and bad karma.

I've now gotten every achievement in Fallout 3, as well as in Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt, and have had a lot of fun in the process. I've seen a lot of things that I missed in my first go-round, and have grown to appreciate, for a second time, the vast world of Fallout 3.

Hackintosh is Dead

Though I usually get my fill of OS X at work, a few months ago I got OS X up and running on some old PC hardware I had laying around at home. I was mostly interested in trying my hand at iPhone App development, so I downloaded the iPhone SDK and got everything up and running without many problems. I didn't use the old rig often however, and I let it sit around for a while before firing it up again last week.

Though I've been told it isn't a good idea, I've used the system update on my Hackintosh before, and everything's turned out fine. When I booted up to find a 300+ mb system update waiting for me, I thought nothing of it as I proceeded with the download and installation. Unfortunately, the update broke my installation, and for some reason I haven't been able to re-install it since. Either something has changed on my box (something which sticks around after multiple hard drive re-partitions?) or I simply can't remember the settings I used to install OS X the first time. It's a drag, but frankly I haven't had time to learn to code iPhone Apps anyway. I'll probably dig into this a little deeper one of these weekends when I've got nothing better to do.

Can't Take the Heat

Recently, I was playing some World of Warcraft on my desktop computer, wrapping up a dungeon with a group of others, when the image on the screen stuttered, a strange dot pattern appeared around my cursor and the UI elements, and then the computer locked up. After a quick restart, and about a minute of play, the same thing happened. In a hurry to get back into the game (and in an effort not to be the reason for the deaths of my entire group), I threw open my laptop and loaded the game up there. In-game disaster was narrowly averted, but it left me worried about my desktop machine.

In my experience, most graphical glitches of this kind are attributed to overheating hardware – the bane of all computer gamers.

So earlier today, I opened up my desktop computer and dusted it out. Then I turned it on and started World of Warcraft again, and let it sit. About 10 minutes later, I came back into the room to find the screen flickering and the computer frozen. Not good.

I guess this is a good excuse to get a new GPU, something I've been wanting to do for a while anyway, but my existing motherboard doesn't have a PCI-Express 2.0 slot on it, so I'm back to the same conundrum as before I assembled my current desktop - upgrading one part means upgrading two or three others as well. And since these are all the most expensive parts (GPU, CPU, motherboard), I might as well just splurge a few extra hundred bucks and update the rest of the hardware. But if my apartment is getting too hot (it's hot here lately, but not that hot), I'm not too keen on buying and subsequently ruining more computer hardware either. It's a problem, I guess.

That's All For Now

Anyway, I think that's enough of this rambling for now. I've been a bit of a scatterbrain lately, and now the madness shall spread!

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Martin Crownover

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